Category: Bookish

In a year where my blogging volume has dropped precipitously due to writing commitments (and, uh, work), this is probably my last post of the year. Let’s go out with a bang! I haven’t had the opportunity to post about some of my favourite things this year, so I’m gathering all my 5-star raves for 2018 in one place.

Works of fantasy are often most compelling for what they have to say about our world. Despite being set in entirely imaginary worlds, some of my favourite fantasy stories have a close relationship to real historical settings and events. They’re “ripped from old headlines,” if you will.

Perhaps most famously, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, and in particular the first novel, A Game of Thrones, has many parallels to England’s War of the Roses. Here are 5 more examples of fantasy novels with a close relation to history.

By a happy accident, my October reading picks follow the theme of Chinese Heritage

As my work on the Sparrow Squadron sequel goes into overdrive, my blogging is still only going to be intermittent. So I was very happy to have been spurred to write this post by a Twitter book tag from friend of the blog Kristin Kraves Books (@kristinbooks). Shout out, Kristin! The bookblogging community has been a lovely and welcoming place, and it was really heartening to draw inspiration from it even as I’ve been going through a lean blogging period.

This tag is a list of October reading choices. I quickly noticed a theme developing entirely by coincidence. All of the books have some connection to Chinese history. So I’m declaring October to be my personal Chinese Heritage Month!